Sitting In The Front Seat Of The Car, On One Of The Many Days I Have Cried About You.

Sitting in the front seat of the car, on one of the many days I have cried about you.

Mama said that sisterhood is a complicated road and right now, to see, that if we cannot be sisters, we can be friends.

I told her how terrible of a thing that is. Because, if we were strangers, passing by on the sidewalk. I said,

"I wouldn't want to be her friend."

I would have just kept walking.

- beyond one thing and onto another, October 2023

(s.m.)

We used to count the ways we had been together in chunks of time: the halfway point to engagement, the halfway point to the halfway point to our engagement, when we will have been together longer than we had been alive without each other.

Will I remember one day, when I will have been without you longer than I had been with you? That my distance from you is longer than the length of us. That seems so far away.

-After, August 2023

(s.m.)

I just realized this doesn't mean the pain isn't there somewhere if you dig deep enough. Another man's lips won't erase the times yours touched mine and no matter how big I smile it won't erase the times I smiled for you. Endings are simply unfair. But that gnawing, that wondering, that regret I felt, I think it's gone. Or, at least, it walked out the door for a while.

-Beyond?, September 2023

(s.m.)

When I cried over you for the millionth time a friend told me that one day you wouldn't cross my mind--that I wouldn't know why, and I wouldn't realize it then, but I would look back and you would be gone.

I don't know when in the last couple days something shifted but you haven't crossed my mind once. Somewhere in the space between I now, feel, nothing.

-Beyond, September 2023

(s.m.)

I kissed another boy last night and he told me I was the most gorgeous girl he had ever seen. My name rolled off his tongue in its own unique blend of vowels and consonants.

He twirled one of my curls around his finger like it was a form of prayer and I opened the door of his life story with a smile and a drink.

He tried to teach me spanish but all he taught me was how to say my name and that I am a gorgeous girl. He tried to show me how to roll my r's and when I butchered it he told me I did well even though I wasn't even remotely close.

He made me say it again to him for the rest of the night. Moi bonita. While his lips trailed down my neck he quizzed me again and the words tumbled out of my mouth in a breathy whisper.

I asked him if he would like to move back to where he was born and he said no.

"Why don't you like where you're from?"

"It doesn't have girls that look like you."

-Beyond, September 2023

(s.m.)

Old habits die hard and I still find myself touching the pad of my thumb against the junction of my ring finger to fiddle with a ghost. I wonder, if everyone else, too, can see the slight crease of my skin where it used to sit. Or maybe that scar is something that only I can see.

-Beyond? September 2023

(s.m.)

So long I have held my tongue for you I think I am beginning to choke on it.

My chest is caving in with those things that are left unsaid, always unsaid. You strike at me, oh do you strike at me.

I let your palm hit my cheek and feel the blood drip down my chin. There is a tange in my mouth. There is always a tange in my mouth as I bite through the soft flesh of my tongue for you.

Over, and over, until my nerves are raw and frayed and tangling inside my limbs.

How odd to feel so raw and so numb all at once.

We used to say God made us sisters because he was simply unable to keep us apart. Now, I think its because he knew it was the only way I would love you.

But what about me? Did he not regard me? I am cursed to love you while I am stuck in the grave of knowing even with our shared blood, you are incapable of loving me back.

-beyond one thing and onto another, October 2023

(s.m.)